Flight to Darkness (12 page)

I got Redfern on the line.

“
Hello. This is Garth.”

“
Ah.”

“
They don’t tell me anything about
the accident,” I said. “I want to know what’s up about that
hit-and-run. They don’t say anything.”

“
Where are you, Garth?”

“
You know where I am.”

“
You mean you’re still out there?
At the San?” He was politely incredulous.

“
Yeah, that’s right.”

“
Good God.” His manner changed
subtly. Not much, but just enough to be noticed. “Well, well. Did
you get your car all right?”

“
What? Listen. What about that
hit-and-run business?”

“
Why, hell, Garth. That’s what I
mean about the car. They should have told you. Allen withdrew all
charges. Said he wasn’t sure about anything. When they won’t place
charges, we can’t do anything.”

I stood there hanging onto the phone as if it
were a piece of dead wood. My insides turned over and I felt dizzy.
Then my head began to clear.

Redfern said, “We turned the car over to that
there girl. The one you called your wife, only she wasn’t. Turned
the car over to her and your brother. Say, did she go away,
Garth?”

It burned down inside. I seemed to sense a
smile in his voice. I swallowed what I wanted to say. “Yeah,” I
said instead. “You turned the car over to them. They’re no charges,
like you say?”

“
Like I say.”

I glanced toward Jim. He was over in the
sitting room talking with Janie. Miss Watkins had her back turned
to me and was busily sharpening pencils.

Redfern said, “Is there anything—” and I laid
the phone down carefully on the desk and walked quietly out the
front door into the blazing sunlight.

Then I ran like hell.

Chapter 8

I knew that if they caught me now, chances
were I’d be kept in that locked room forever. A man who was
suspected of being out of his mind, as I was, didn’t stand a
chance. There’d be no way of my explaining how I felt. I could say
over and over again, somebody’s doing this to me. I’m all right.
There’s nothing wrong with me. I know that. And they’d just sit and
listen and walk away and make motions at their temples to their
friends.

It was a mean fix. So I ran hard, down the
walk to the street. The river was over there and for a brief
instant I thought of diving in, trying to swim away. But those
things were done in the backwoods, not here, where they’d just go
around the block and pick me up when I came out dripping and
exhausted.

I spotted a car at the curb. It was an old
Ford coupe with a smashed fender.

“
Eric!”

It was Jim, coming hell-bent down the walk
after me. Miss Watkins was yelling at the door. I made for the
coupe, yanked the door open and dived inside. The keys were there.
Luck was changing. Maybe.

I got the car started as Jim landed on the
side and pulled at the door. I cut a sharp left fist and caught his
forearm. He let go, running beside the car as I drove
off.

“
That’s my car, Eric! Man, don’t do
it!”

His face bobbed red and mad beside the car,
his eyes not pleading but mad, too, and his mouth a dark yelling
hole in his head, as he ran along, leaping hedges and staggering on
the curb.

I ripped the wheel left, not caring now, and
Jim dived for it. I didn’t hit him, but he hit the dirt, hard. As I
whipped around the corner I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Jim
was kneeling half up, still yelling at me. Then all I could hear
was the roar of the motor and the rattle bang of the smashed fender
as I headed for the main road.

The car ran smoothly. It was a hot afternoon.
The sun was white.

They’d be after me. I had to ditch the car. I
was wearing overalls. I had no money. So far as I knew I was judged
a mental case. That would bring out a posse in this country; maybe
a mob with shotguns, muzzle-loaders, and what-have-you, all yelling
and ready to get the madman who had escaped from the Riverview
Sanitarium.

I knew something else. Something I had refused
to admit to myself and something no one had been willing to
answer.

Why was I being held at the sanitarium?
Because somebody’d had me committed. Otherwise I’d have been free
to go and they would have been able to tell me. All they’d told me
was I was there for a rest and not to worry, that everything would
be all right. Maybe I was nuts. Maybe I was going home to kill my
brother.

Because I was going home. Nothing would stop
me.

As I gunned the Ford coupe down the blacktop
road, hoping I’d hit a main highway soon, Leda sat beside me. Her
ghost was there and she was naked, carrying yellow shorts in one
hand. Leda. Leda was gone. Leda had disappeared.
Vanished.

The one you called your wife, only she
wasn’t.

Neat. Like that. I had to get home. Find out
what I could and see Frank face to face. Once that was out of my
system, I’d be clean.

Then I could spend the rest of my life hunting
Leda. I knew I’d find her because the world isn’t big enough to
hide in. Not for Leda it wouldn’t be big enough. I told myself she
wasn’t with Frank, hadn’t been.

I tried to tell myself I’d find her because
she’d run out on me when I needed her most. When I had to have her
support. I didn’t know where she’d gone. She had weakened and run
out on me. Alone, I told myself. Alone!

Because I loved her. She was in me. She was a
part of me and no other woman—not even Norma—could ever take her
place. There was only one, Leda, and it had to stay that way. It
would stay that way.

The blacktop road ended and I hit a stretch of
bouncy tar-ribbed cement, which sent the Ford leaping like a
stricken sparrow.

When I got home I knew I’d see Norma. She’d be
there, as she’d always been. And maybe she’d always be my girl. But
there could only be one Leda. . . .

Trees, low hills, shallow gutters, sunny-sided
fields sloped past the car with speed, blurred in my vision, dusty
through the windshield.

I held the pedal to the floor. It was like
flying low. Sunlight jerked in unrhythmic splashes on the road, the
car, and across my face. The engine spat and roared with that same
unattainable and terrific savagery seen in the myriad and untamed
noises a hen makes when being chased by a rooster with a one-track
mind.

Cars that passed, and cars I passed, drew out
of the way with a slow-motion illusion that was confounding. I knew
I was wild, I knew the exertion of the past few moments was
telling. But I also knew the old glands were pumping adrenalin and
so long as I utilized it, they’d keep pumping.

Stay excited until it’s all over. That’s what
I told myself. Make it a blur. And then I got the idea.

Get drunk. Back there in my mind Prescott
babbled about how I should stay away from the bottle. But if I did,
I’d get calm again. I couldn’t afford to get calm now. I had nearly
a thousand miles to cover and it had to be done fast. Once it was
done, things wouldn’t matter.

All right. Clothes. Money. Ditch the car. A
bottle. And home. How home? Plane. That was the fastest.

How to get them?

The second-hand car lot on the edge of town
flashed by with a red-and-white sign reading: “CANNE’S CARS.” I
rode the brakes without half realizing what I was doing. The car
fishtailed. I made a sharp U-turn and beat it straight for Canne’s
place. The Ford whirred like an over-revved plane in a spin as I
bounced up the gravel drive leading between flashing new cars into
the lot.

“
Well, two hundred, mebbe. No more.
And that’s going pretty high, too.” Canne was freckle-faced, heavy
jowled, and dressed sleekly in a tan sport suit. It was obvious to
Canne. He was beating a poor hick.

“
All right. It’s a deal. I need the
cash.”

“
Haven’t I seen that car
before?”

“
You may have. I came to town a
week ago, been working here since then. Probably saw it around
town.”

“
Sure. I’ve seen that there car
before.” His eyes were big and I wondered that he didn’t get them
full of dust. There were purple veins strung in a webbed shield
across his nose.

When he’d paid me and I’d signed the car over
in Jim Phelby’s name, I said, “Can I use your phone?”

He was reading the registration I’d found in
the glove compartment. As I stood there in my worn overalls,
jittery, impatient, a police car wound past outside with siren
wailing and moaning like the passionate shepherd. It may have been
a fire. It could be the police were going to a ball. But I was
certain all that hurry was for me.

“
Sure, go on, use the phone,” Canne
said. He wiped his nose, folded the registration, tossed it into a
desk drawer among odds and ends of papers.

I called the airport, which was only ten miles
away. Their next flight to Tampa, Florida, would be in a half hour.
Could I make a reservation? Certainly, no need, really, plenty of
space. Reserve me a seat, anyway. All right.

Next call: Western Union, charge Albert Canne.
Is this all right, Mr. Canne?

NORMA MEET ME DREW FIELD TWO O’CLOCK THIS
AFTERNOON

Yes, honey, it’s all right.

Next call: Send a cab right over to Canne’s
cars. What’s the address here, Mr. Canne? Two-ten Lee Street.
That’s right, right away.

Next call: Is this the Riverview Sanitarium?
Yes, Miss Watkins, speaking. She was excited, breathing hard, and I
could see, in my mind’s eye, her mashed-potato breasts heaving
beneath her uniform. Miss Watkins, would you tell Jim Phelby his
car is at Canne’s car lot? Tell him that—wait a minute, Miss
Watkins—tell him Eric Garth says he’ll see that two hundred dollars
plus expenses are wired to him by tomorrow morning. Yes, thank you.
I’m sorry, Miss Watkins, good-bye. She was having a
time.

“
Aren’t you James Phelby?” Mister
Canne said. The papers and pencils in his shirt pocket weighted it
down badly.

“
Certainly.”

“
Oh.”

I went out front to the walk. Pretty soon the
cab came along and I directed the driver to the airport. “And step
it up, will you?”

“
Sure thing.”

“
Stop right there, will you?” I
said three minutes later. “By that clothing store.”

The cab braked to a stop. “Only a minute,” I
said, climbing out. The driver yawned and scratched his neck.
“Listen,” I said, handing him a twenty-dollar bill, “while I’m in
here, go some place and buy me a fifth of whisky.”

“
What kind?”

“
Rye. Any kind.”

“
Done.”

I went on into the clothing store. We were on
the main business street in Sordell. As I entered the store, I
wondered vaguely what Leda had done with my car. It had been a new
car. Well, there were lots of new cars, but if I’d had it, I could
have had more money from Canne, and there wouldn’t have been any
possibility of Watkins tipping the police where I’d
been.

Because they’d trace the call, I was only
hoping for one thing. Jim would be with the police, hunting for me,
and Watkins wouldn’t be able to say I’d phoned. They wouldn’t be
able to trace me to Canne’s car lot until I was on the plane for
Tampa. Or maybe even in Tampa. That would be the thing I had to
hope for. Radio could stop me at Tampa plenty quick. I’d march off
the plane into the arms of Florida police. An escaped
lunatic.

I bought a cheap pair of pants with the cuffs
on, because I couldn’t wait for them to be altered. “I’ll need a
jacket,” I said. “A shirt, too.”

“
Yes, sir.”

They wondered why I was in a hurry. I didn’t
tell them. I bought a hat, too, something I’d never worn as a
civilian. Altogether, I looked exactly like somebody who was
running away from a sanitarium after I’d put the clothes
on.

“
You can keep the overalls and
shirt,” I said.

The clerk’s hair was marcelled, perfumed, and
he didn’t want to soil his fingers touching the
overalls.

“
Really,” he said. “We don’t want
them.”

“
That’s a shame,” I said. “Because
you’re stuck with ’em.”

“
But what ever will I do with
them?”

I told him an impolite way to rid himself of
them. He blushed madly and I went on outside in my new
duds.

I climbed aboard the plane with the fifth of
whisky under one arm. I felt like an escaped convict. Then I knew
that’s what I was, for real.

The stewardess came down the aisle with some
orange juice. It made a fine surreptitious orange-juice cocktail
with the whiskey added. I had to share it with my seat companion, a
psychiatrist headed for Miami.

“
I’m going down to take a cure,” he
said.

“
Oh.”

“
But this won’t hurt. I’ve been on
the stuff for five years. My wife insists it’s too
long.”